Conventionally, three-dimensional structure analysis of biological substances such as proteins and nucleic acids has been promoted. To elucidate a three-dimensional structure of a biological substance is crucial in developing, for example, a new medicine or the like that can combine with the biological substance. As a technique of analyzing the three-dimensional structure of biological substances, for example, crystal structure analysis is known. Crystal structure analysis is a technique to determine the structure of a crystal, in which a crystal of a biological substance is prepared, diffraction of X-rays or the like by the crystal lattice is performed, and result of the diffraction is analyzed.
Unfortunately, the crystals of biological substances are extremely brittle unlike the crystals of inorganic compounds, and they are thus difficult to handle. To solve this problem, a technique for crystallizing a biological substance in a gel has been proposed (WO 2009/091053).
The crystal preparing method described in WO '053 is useful in that it can easily prepare a crystal compared to a method of precipitating a crystal from a solution. However, the gel is easily dried, and that needs to be taken care of. Also, the work to take out the crystal formed in the gel requires some skills. Therefore, there is room for further improvement in the method described in WO '053.
It could therefore be helpful to provide a fiber-containing crystal excellent in mechanical strength, easy to handle, and allows for highly accurate structure analysis, and a method of preparing such fiber-containing crystal; an apparatus for preparing the fiber-containing crystal; and a chemical soaking device using such fiber-containing crystal.